Chapter 160: Save 2nd Done
The emergency lights continued flashing as Nobody escorted Moonlissa through the narrow corridor. Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
The factory had become strangely quiet.
Nobody glanced over his shoulder. "...I don’t like this."
Moonlissa looked at him. "What?"
"The silence." He tightened his grip around the icy crowbar. "Usually, when bad guys know you’re escaping,they start yelling."
Moonlissa gave him a confused look. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Ahem...No." Nobody paused. "Actually,I’m trying to figure out why they’re not chasing us."
A System window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Environmental Analysis]
Hostile Activity:
Minimal
Surveillance:
Active
Possible Reason:
Enemy is observing User
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...So they really are watching."
Moonlissa looked around nervously. "Where?"
Nobody pointed toward the ceiling. "Cameras."
She immediately looked up. "I didn’t notice them before."
"That’s because they’re really good at hiding." Nobody continued walking. "But whoever is controlling them isn’t hiding anymore."
Moonlissa frowned. "What do you mean?"
Nobody smiled. "They want us to know."
They reached the end of the corridor. A large metal door stood ahead. Nobody pushed it. It didn’t move. He tried again. But it didn’t even budge.
Nobody looked at the System.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Exit Door]
Status:
Locked
Security Level:
High
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Of course."
Moonlissa looked around. "Can you break it?"
Nobody raised his crowbar. "I can." He paused. "But I’m starting to think every door in this place costs money."
Moonlissa almost laughed. The sound was small. But it was the first genuine laugh Nobody had heard from her.
He smiled. "That’s better."
She looked at him. "What?"
"You laughed."
Moonlissa’s expression softened. "I guess I did."
Nobody tapped the crowbar against the floor. "Good. Let’s keep doing that after we leave."
Before Moonlissa could answer...A voice suddenly echoed through the corridor. "Crimson Bunny."
Nobody froze. Moonlissa immediately stepped closer to him.
Nobody slowly looked around. "Who’s talking?"
The voice came from the speakers. "You’ve caused quite a mess tonight."
Nobody looked at the nearest camera. "Oh. So you’re the guy watching us."
Then the voice returned. "You have no idea what you’ve interfered with."
Nobody smiled. "I’ve heard that before."
The man continued. "You rescued one girl."
Nobody’s smile disappeared.
"You rescued another."
Moonlissa looked at him. Nobody’s grip tightened around the crowbar.
The voice continued. "And you believe you’ve accomplished something."
Nobody stared at the camera. "Believe?" He raised his head. "No, I know."
The voice became colder. "You don’t understand the organization you’re interfering with."
Nobody shrugged. "I don’t really care."
"You should."
"No." Nobody stepped toward the camera. "I really shouldn’t."
The voice paused.
Nobody continued. "You kidnapped people, you hurt innocent families and you scared these girls."
He lifted his crowbar. "And now you’re surprised someone decided to interfere?"
Moonlissa stared at Nobody. For the first time since he had entered the facility, she looked less frightened.
The voice returned. "You think you’re a hero?"
Nobody tilted his head. "No." He smiled. "I’m just the bunny whose going to kick your as*!!"
The speaker went silent. Nobody waited.
He looked toward Moonlissa. "That was dramatic."
Moonlissa blinked. "...Very."
Nobody pointed toward the door. "Anyway. Let’s leave." He raised both crowbars. The frost around them intensified.
Moonlissa stepped backward. Nobody swung. The first crowbar struck the locking mechanism. The metal bent. He struck it again.
The reinforced mechanism cracked. A third strike finally broke the locking system. The door slowly opened. Cold night air rushed inside.
Moonlissa shielded her eyes. Nobody stepped through first. They had reached the outside. Moonlight covered the industrial yard.
For several seconds, Moonlissa simply stood there. She looked at the open sky. Nobody noticed her expression.
"...It’s beautiful."
Nobody looked upward. "Yeah."
Moonlissa took a deep breath. "I thought I would never see this night sky again."
Nobody looked at her. "But you did."
She nodded. "Because of you."
Nobody scratched the back of his helmet. "Don’t thank me yet."
Moonlissa looked confused. "Why?"
"Because we still have to get you somewhere safe."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Rescue Objective]
Target: Moonlissa
Status:
Successfully Rescued
Immediate Danger:
Low
Next Step:
Transfer Target To Authorities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "Perfect."
Moonlissa suddenly noticed something. "Wait."
Nobody stopped. "What?"
She pointed toward the far side of the yard. "There’s a vehicle."
Nobody turned.
A black van was parked beside the outer fence. The headlights were off.
Nobody stared at it. "...Interesting."
The System scanned the vehicle.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Vehicle Analysis]
Unregistered
Engine:
Active
Occupants:
3
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s expression became serious. "Three people."
Moonlissa stepped closer to him. "Are they coming for us?"
Nobody watched the van. "I don’t know."
The vehicle suddenly started moving. Nobody immediately moved Moonlissa behind him. The van accelerated toward the gate.
Nobody raised his crowbar. "Stay behind me."
The vehicle stopped several meters away. The driver’s door opened. A man stepped out.
He raised both hands. "Don’t shoot."
Nobody blinked. "...I wasn’t going to."
The man slowly walked forward. "I’m not one of them."
Nobody remained cautious. "Then who are you?"
The man stopped. "My name is Daniel. I work with the local authorities."
Nobody stared. "Proof?"
Daniel reached slowly into his jacket.
Nobody immediately raised the crowbar. "Slowly."
Daniel pulled out an identification card. Nobody examined it.
The System scanned it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Identity Verification]
Daniel Carter
Affiliation:
Law Enforcement
Status:
Verified
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody lowered the crowbar. "Hmm, looks legit. Okay.."
Daniel looked toward Moonlissa. "Is she the victim?"
Nobody nodded. "She is."
Daniel’s expression softened. "We’ve been searching for her."
Moonlissa looked uncertain.
Daniel spoke gently. "You don’t have to be afraid anymore."
Nobody looked at Moonlissa. "It’s okay."
She slowly stepped forward. Daniel immediately wrapped a protective blanket around her shoulders. "We’ll take you somewhere safe."
Moonlissa looked back at Nobody. "You aren’t coming?"
Nobody smiled. "I’ve got somewhere else to be."
Daniel frowned. "You should come with us."
Nobody shook his head. "I can’t."
Daniel looked toward the factory. "You know these people?"
"No."
"Then how did you get inside?"
Nobody paused. "Long story short... this is my night job."
Daniel sighed. "I figured, by the getup."
Moonlissa suddenly grabbed Nobody’s sleeve.
He looked down.
She was holding him tightly. "...Thank you."
Nobody smiled. "You’re welcome."
She hesitated. "Will I see you again?"
Nobody thought for a second. Then nodded. "Probably when some as*hole spreading crime, you will see me there beating the crap outta him."
Moonlissa smiled. Daniel guided her toward the van.
Nobody remained where he was.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Complete]
Target: Moonlissa
Status:
Safe
Rewards:
Experience Increased
Bad Guy Fight Points:
+100
Rescue Count:
2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Two." He looked toward the city skyline. "But there’s still Rian."
The System displayed another window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Remaining Rescue Target]
Rian
Age:
11
Danger Level:
Moderate
Estimated Time Remaining:
4 Hours 02 Minutes
Location:
Unknown
Search Required
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s smile disappeared. "...Unknown?"
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Additional Information]
Rian’s location has been intentionally concealed.
Probability of hostile interference:
High
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly lowered his head. "So that higher being interfering with location checking. Probably because he knew I was saving them."
He looked back toward the factory. The cameras had stopped moving.
Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "Also...That man wasn’t just watching. He was buying time. To hide Rian."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Objective]
Locate Rian
Search Area:
Eastern Industrial District
Recommended Method:
Investigate Remaining Facility Network
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "So I have to go back inside."
The System remained silent.
Nobody looked toward the factory. "...You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Well a little]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Knew it."
Nobody climbed onto his crimson motorcycle. The engine came alive beneath him. Before leaving, he looked toward the police van.
Moonlissa was sitting safely inside. She looked through the window. Nobody raised one hand. She waved back. Then the van drove away.
Nobody lowered his hand. "Two safe." His eyes turned toward the eastern district. "One more."
He lowered his visor. The crimson motorcycle accelerated into the night. Behind him, the abandoned factory became smaller.
But inside one of its hidden rooms...A single monitor suddenly turned back on. The mysterious man appeared on the screen. He watched Nobody disappear into the distance.
Then he smiled. "Rian."
Another figure stood behind him. "Should we move the boy?"
The man shook his head. "No."
"Why?"
He leaned back in his chair. "Because the Crimson Bunny is already heading toward him."
A pause followed.
Then the man smiled. "Let’s see how far he can go."
The screen displayed a new image. A small boy sitting alone inside a dark room. It was Rian. His eyes were closed. He was quietly holding a small toy in his hands.
Then...
He opened his eyes. And looked directly toward the hidden camera. The mysterious man’s smile disappeared.
Rian slowly whispered... "...He’s coming."
The screen went black.
Far away, the Crimson Bunny continued riding toward the eastern district.
Nobody didn’t know what waited for him. He didn’t know who was controlling the operation.
But one thing was certain. The rescue mission wasn’t over.
It had only entered its next stage.